Informal Mentor Programs for B Corps - A Great Way to Build Skills and Culture for Your Business
What is a B Corp? For those who are not familiar with B Corps, they are defined as “business that balances purpose and profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment. This is a community of leaders, driving a global movement of people using business as a force for good.“ (Source: https://bcorporation.net/). Many great organizations are B Corps including: Patagonia, Boloco Burritos, Coursera, and Luke’s Lobster.
A few of my clients, including King Arthur Baking Company, Stonyfield Farm, and Danone are Certified B Corps. When I work with B Corps clients, it often feels more inclusive and welcoming as a consultant and coach because they are focused on being exceptional companies while working to solve societal problems.
I have designed formal and informal mentor programs for some of my B Corp clients. Informal mentoring can happen throughout various levels within an organization. Sometimes it is an official program, but often it is not. Informal mentoring sometimes resembles a more experienced person taking the time to teach skills to a new hire. At other times, it may manifest when someone in the community or a professional organization takes a person “under their wing” to help them learn the culture or build their network. Most mentor program are informal.
Example of a B Corp client Informal Mentor Program
I built an informal mentor program for King Arthur Baking Company a few years ago to support immersion of new hires into their culture. Mentors from each department were identified and received information about objectives and expectations. New hires were matched with a mentor from a different part of the business for their first 90 days. This informal mentoring program resulted in many benefits to King Arthur Baking Company, both as an organization and for its employees. These benefits include:
Characteristics of Less Formal Mentoring
In an informal mentor program, goals are less specific. Often there is little to no training of the mentor on how to be an effective mentor or the setting of expectations within the mentor relationship. Typically, there are also no time limits or set schedules for these mentor/mentee interactions and little to no expense incurred to a business. The outcomes of these less formal programs are often not evaluated, resulting in less data about their success rate.
Benefits of Informal Mentor Programs
The benefits of a less formal program are that they are often organic and happen throughout the organization without needed staff resources. They are flexible and can be started or ended easily. If the mentor and mentee are not the right fit, it is simple to stop the guidance. These programs are very simple, but can add huge value to the business!
Informal mentor programs can provide a cost-effective way to support knowledge sharing and culture of Certified B Corporations, while strengthening the business bottom line!
Interested in building a MENTOR program for your B Corp organization? Let’s Connect.
Check out my short Mentor blog posts:
Positive Use of Power: Mentor Programs Strengthen Culture and Produce Strong ROI
Questions from the Maine HR Convention Keynote - Effective Mentor Program Design
Peer Mentoring - An Effective Way to Help you Grow in your Business Career
Informal Mentoring - A Great Way to Build Skills and Culture for Your Business
Questions? Let’s connect. I would love to hear your success stories. Please send them to: hello@sarahscala.com or visit www.sarahscala.com
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About the Author:
Sarah Scala is a senior talent management leader and executive coach with 20+ years of experience providing organization development, change management, and leadership development solutions for diverse global and local industries. She is a collaborative consultant, coach, and educator supporting performance transformation of executives, leaders, and teams. Sarah is a methodical, results-driven leader recognized for helping clients reach their highest potential, increase revenue, reduce turnover, elevate business profitability, build competencies, and improve performance.
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